Shaman 70-80

[Correction]

So my rogue's about to hit 80 but if I'm going to make any kind of dent into LK's raid scene I gotta get my shaman up to 80 and make him resto. That part is farily obvious.

What's not obvious is how to plan his gear to 80. Anybody have any experience doing this? With the new change to the values of Strength and Intellect I'm not sure how to itemize an enhancement shaman anymore. Should I simply abandon that and use my healing gear with a elemental spec in between instances from 70-80?

[Rivero]

If you're in healer gear you could probably go Elemental spec and see some decent results. You get an assload of Crit from talents but with no +Hit and Elemental needing much more Hit now you might have a little bit of trouble.

It's your call, you could probably either do:

Level as Elemental in Resto gear and pick up Resto gear with some slight +spell hit gear to have no issues and that way you'll come out with decent Resto gear for 80.

If you do go to choose Enhancement it'll be rough the first few levels. I'd probably try to do instances and level up as Resto grabbing Enhancement gear as you go and once you feel comfortable to make the switch it should be easier on you. As far as stats go you should look to get a good hit rating and start pumping strength/AP/crit. Look for slow weapons also including offhand (generally anything 2.60 is fine).

I'd say take the first route since they made Elemental very strong in terms of mana conservation and with resto gear you should have very little down time. You might start off slow in the beginning but once you get some spell hit you should be fine. As far as soloing mobs Elemental is really good since you can rotate Frost Shock/Chain Lightning for those trickier mobs and the benefit is you can roll on Resto gear for when you make the swap at 80 to Resto.

[Correction]

I have enough money spread across my characters for frequent rerolls and nowadays runic hammers are pretty cheap, so I don't really mind the regear for enhancement. I'm just more curious what people found out there in terms of the upgrade path between specs. Given the assumption that enhancement = no dungeon drops and therefore no physical dps gear and restoration = dungeon drops and therefore caster dps gear, I'd like to plan on the soloing path between dungeon grinds that will help me gear up my non-healing spec the quickest.

Elemental is attractive because I will be able to pick up some dungeon gear for it, regardless of being a healer or not but if the quest rewards from 70-80 heavily favor an enhancement build, I'm all for it since it's the type of dps I'm more comfortable with (coming from a rogue background, after all).

Digging through wowhead one slot at a time for both caster and melee dps upgrades a shaman can use is getting a little tiring, so I was hoping for some first-hand experience.

[Rivero]

Well I've been an Elemental Shaman since day 1. I've never really tried Enhancement. It took me a week to level 60-70 when TBC came out and that was with frequent drinking. Since 3.0.2 came out I've rarely had to sit down and drink. So if you're worried about how fast you can hit 80, you shouldn't have any problems making it in a week or two.

The benefits to being an Elemental is your options are far bigger. I generally rolled on a lot of cloth gear in the 70's and seeing as how they added moonkin gear as well that was a nice change of pace also. I remember back in the old days you had to go restoration no matter what you wanted to be and Elemental gear was pretty much cloth 100%.

But since TBC/WotLK your options have tripled. If the quest reward yields a crappy mail piece, maybe the leather or cloth one is more to your liking? If someone gives you crap about rolling on a cloth/leather piece while you're doing an instance tell him to mind his own damn business. The actual benefit lies in now when you're doing quests/instances you can select from more than one piece. While as Enhancement generally stick to mail gear for their own reasons.

I'd say try Elemental. I loved it since the first time I played it. Who knows...maybe you might say "to hell with healing" like I did and enjoy the game for a change. : p

[Correction]

I wish I had the 'to hell with healing' option, as the members of my guild can count only three healers amongst them, including my shaman.

[Galaika]

Enhancement shaman gear = hunter gear, dps mail has all the stuff you want on it, agi and int both give the same AP as str, so there's no reason to wear rogue leather.

MP5 is a wasted stat though, don't bother with it if you see any gear with it on.

[aers]

so there's no reason to wear rogue leather.

expertise